Woina (artist collective)
Woina ( Russian Война ; German War ) is a Russian artist collective founded by Oleg Worotnikow and Natalja Sokol , which engaged in political provocation with street art and became known through protests against the Russian government. The internationally best-known former members include Ekaterina Samuzewitsch and Nadeschda Tolokonnikowa .
History and actions
Woina was founded in 2006 by Oleg Worotnikow and his wife, the physicist Natalja Sokol. The members of Wojna met at the Philosophical Faculty of Lomonosov University in Moscow. The collective's provocative actions “are in the tradition of the fools in Christ , whose madness has been respected in Russia since the Middle Ages,” commented the action artist Oleg Kulik on the group's public appearances.
The actions were directed against the trial of the then director of the Sakharov Center , Yuri Samodurov, in which the activists performed a satirical song in the courtroom. In spring 2008, one day before the election of Dmitri Medvedev , Kulig and his wife and the heavily pregnant Nadezhda Tolokonnikova with her husband and other Voina members organized a performance in the Biological Museum in Moscow under the title “ Fick in support of the bear - Successor "-" Bärchen "is a corruption of the name Medvedev in Russian and was also directed against the maternity capital initiative of the Russian government to increase the birth rate in Russia. Like previous and subsequent actions, the videos and pictures captured by the group dominated the Russian blogger websites; Comments ranged from “pornographers” to “idiots” to allegations that the activists had brought their university to shame. The scientific council of the Philosophical Faculty of Lomonosov University publicly distanced itself, the nationalist-orthodox group “People's Assembly” sued a member of the group unsuccessfully for spreading pornography.
On the day of the October Revolution in November 2008, Voina staged a "storm on the White House" by using a projector to project a giant skull onto the workplace of Vladimir Putin and the Russian government in central Moscow.
At the beginning of 2009, as part of the "A present for Luzhkov" campaign, symbolically and secured on climbing harnesses, some Uzbek guest workers and gays were hung up in a Russian supermarket in response to the anti-gay statements made by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and the murders of guest workers from Central Asia.
In 2010, the collective used 55 liters of white emulsion paint to paint a stylized penis in the format 65 by 27 meters on the part of a drawbridge ( Liteiny Bridge in St. Petersburg) that was opposite the building of the domestic intelligence service . In 2011, a media-effective campaign was carried out in which Woina activists overwhelmed female police officers on duty and forced them to kiss.
Yekaterina Samuzewitsch and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were involved in the Pussy Riot protest movement from October 2011 until their early release in October 2012 and December 2013, respectively - further actions by Woina have not become known to the wider public since 2011, even if the group is still active . According to media reports, the wife of the founder Oleg Worotnikow, Natalja Sokol, wanted to apply for asylum in Switzerland.
From Zurich, Oleg Worotnikow and Natalja Sokol moved with their three children to an occupied house in Basel. There, however - as in Venice in 2014 - they came into conflict with the other residents who accused them of being parasitic. Worotnikov and Sokol filmed the clashes and published parts of them on the Internet. The police had to move out twice. The family was then thrown out of the house. Although Worotnikov and Sokol had applied for asylum in Switzerland, they moved on to Prague. They were arrested there on September 18, 2016.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kerstin Holm: The art collective Woina: True art means war . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . January 19, 2012. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
- ^ Christian Viveros-Faune: The New Realism . Art in America (June 2012 edition). Archived from the original on December 2, 2013. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
- ^ A b c Moritz Gathmann: Outrage guaranteed - The Russian art guerrilla . Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. December 17, 2009. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
- ↑ War on the philistines spiegel.de of December 17, 2011.
- ↑ Miriam Elder: Radical Russian art group shows love for the police . globalpost.com. March 1, 2011. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
- ↑ Interview with Pussy Riot Leader: 'I Love Russia, But I Hate Putin' . Spiegel Online . September 3, 2012. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
- ↑ Carmen Eller: Court report "Forbidden Art": Peepshow for Putin . spiegel.de. March 5, 2013. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
- ↑ watson.ch: Switzerland was the only country that wanted to help me ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ avtonom.org: On the slanderous accusations in today's "Nuova Venezia" and Regarding the statement issued by the Voina art group
- ^ Week of the day: Russian dissident arrested in Basel - that's behind it
- ^ Artforum: Czech Police Arrest Founding Member of Voina Art Collective for Hooliganism in Russia
